The project focuses on the study of costs and benefits of adopting rehabilitation therapies. It is a topic of great economic and social importance both in terms of efficiency in the use of public resources and to improve the quality of life of the effectiveness of healthcare interventions.
The analysis estimates both healthcare costs and benefits for traumatized people and their families. Healthcare costs vary depending on the severity of the outcomes. In more severe cases, the patient is hospitalized in intensive rehabilitation units specializing in the care of vegetative states. Serious cases are followed in daytime occupational structures, while mild and moderate situations involve outpatient rehabilitation facilities where prevalently rehabilitation activities are performed. A reliable estimate of health costs is based on the knowledge of the frequency of visits and the duration and type of admissions using the information contained in the case register. From this estimate can be determined the different care packages and related healthcare costs. Naturally, the costs of the different treatments vary also in relation to the quality of the service provided by the health unit. For this reason, the research project compares the health costs associated with a traditional hospital-based rehabilitation path with the costs of an innovative rehabilitation path with highly specialized intensive rehabilitation units such as the one offered by the Don Calabria Multifunctional Center.